d put on our best
clothes, and how we went to the chapel or church, I forget which they
called it; but no matter, we went to pray."

"Was your father of the Established Church, Malachi?"

"I can't tell, ma'am; indeed, I hardly know what it means; but he was a
good Christian and a good man, that I do know."

"You are right, Malachi; when the population is crowded, you find people
divided into sects, and, what is still worse, despising, if not hating
each other, because the outward forms of worship are a little different.
Here in our isolated position, we feel how trifling are many of the
distinctions which divide religious communities, and that we could
gladly give the right hand of fellowship to any denomination of
Christians who hold the main truths of the Gospel. Are not all such
agreed in things essential, animated with the same hopes, acknowledging
the same rule of faith, and all comprehended in the same divine mercy
which was shown us on this day? What do all sincere Christians believe
but that God is holy, great, good, and merciful, that his Son died for
us all, and that through his merits and intercession if we conform to
his precepts--whether members of the Church of England, or any other
communion--we shall be saved, and obtain the blessedness of heaven? We
may prefer, and reasonably prefer, our own mode of worship, believing it
to be most edifying; but we have no right to quarrel with those who
conscientiously differ from us about outward forms and ceremonies which
do not involve the spirit of Christianity."

After a pause, Mary Percival said, "Malachi, tell us more about your
father and your family."

"I have little to tell, miss; only that I now think that those were
pleasant days which then I thought irksome. My father had a large farm
and would have had us all remain with him. In the winter we felled
timber, and I took quite a passion for a hunter's life; but my father
would not allow me to go from home, so I stayed till he died, and then I
went away on my rambles. I left when I was not twenty years old, and I
have never seen my family since. I have been a hunter and a trapper, a
guide and a soldier, and an interpreter; but for these last twenty-five
years I have been away from towns and cities, and have lived altogether
in the woods. The more man lives by himself, the more he likes it, and
yet now and then circumstances bring up the days of his youth, and make
him hesitate whether it be best